Time Out for Lessons

I beg to differ with critics such as Leonard Maltin and others who critiqued it as a humorless, moralizing short. I saw humor in the dance scene, in Coach Spanky and Leonard Landy, in both of the dorm and locker room scenes, and the reaction of the kids at the end to the statement by Alfalfa "from now on we take time out for lessons" as if they weren't taking the statement seriously in undertones of "sure, yeah, and I bet". Even the way Alfalfa expressed the statement came across as mocking. The only one who seemed serious and didactic was Alfalfa's dad. I found more humor in this short than such Our Gang classics as "Fly My Kite" and "Dogs is Dogs". I viewed it not as a moralizing short but a moralizing spoof.